The 50-year-old man who died in 2006 from anthrax probably caught the disease while "playing or handling West African drums", the BBC reports.
Christopher Norris worked with untreated animal hides at his home at Black Lodge in Stobs in the Scottish Borders. An inquiry has concluded he succumbed to the first case of "inhalation …

Should I be worried?

My wife has recently purchased a new Djembe and all in the family have had fun bashing away at the thing for a while. The group she plays with have also bought a new batch of various drums which do originate from the African subcontinent.

Hide and Sick

Since in both these cases the victims had "animal hides" at home, why do the experts conclude that the drumming sessions were to blame? No one else caught the disease except the guys who hung untreated skins up in their living room... Have I missed something?

@Neil Gerstenberg et al

I was in that drumming class (I figured it would be a safe change from flying or sailing or climbing - how wrong was I) and drummed beside the chap that sadly died. The comprehensive report on the BBC page explains that they only found anthrax spores in the hall at Smailholm and not in this home where he did his hobby of taxidermy. His home was very closely examined as that was the mian hypothesis last year. When they found nothing they eventually examined the hall where the classes took place where they found spores.

As an aside although you could walk past the hall and drive up to it, there was an air exclusion zone of 3 nautical miles so we couldn't fly over it under 3,000 feet... They also held the 'are you worried about Anthrax?' meeting in the village hall where they subsequently found the spores.

I wonder if any terrorist organisation would be interested in my drum...

There is also some IT in this story as one of the main problems highlighted in the report is the failing of IT in delays of database capture.